Knox says she will not willingly return to Italy

Published: January 31, 2014 10:02AM

SEATTLE (AP) -- Amanda Knox said Friday she will fight the reinstated guilty verdict against her and an ex-boyfriend in the 2007 slaying of a British roommate in Italy and vowed to "never go willingly" to face her fate in that country's judicial system .

"I'm going to fight this to the very end," she said in an interview with Robin Roberts on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Knox said she has written a letter to the family of her slain British roommate, Meredith Kercher, expressing sympathy for the legal ordeal that continues more than six years after she was stabbed and sexually assaulted.

"I want them to know I understand this is incredibly difficult. They also have been on this never-ending thing. When the case has been messed up so much, a verdict is no longer a consolation for them," Knox said during Friday's interview.

"And just the very fact that they don't know what happened is horrible," Knox said.

"They deserve respect and the consolation of some kind of acknowledgement," she said. "I really wish them the best."

Kercher's sister Stephanie and brother Lyle were in the courtroom in Florence for the Thursday's verdict.

"It's hard to feel anything at the moment because we know it will go to a further appeal," Lyle Kercher said. "No matter what the verdict was, it never was going to be a case of celebrating anything."

Knox's former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, has been prohibited from leaving Italy while the case continues.

"I don't know what I would do if they imprisoned him. It's maddening," Knox told GMA.

And she is not ready for the possibility she could be extradited to Italy to serve a 28-year prison sentence.

"This really, it hit me like a train. I didn't expect this to happen. I really expected so much better from the Italian system. They found me innocent before, how could they say beyond a reasonable doubt," Knox told GMA.

During the trial, Knox, 26, remained in Seattle, where she is a student at the University of Washington.

The court reinstated a guilty verdict first handed down against Knox and Sollecito in 2009. The verdict was overturned in 2011, but Italy's supreme court vacated that decision and sent the case back for the third trial in Florence.

"I just really hope that people try to understand that (when you have) overzealous prosecutors and when you have a biased investigation and coercive interrogation these things happen. And I'm not crazy," Knox told GMA.